


Bits and pieces

by Caers



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-11
Updated: 2012-03-11
Packaged: 2017-11-01 19:20:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/360337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caers/pseuds/Caers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few moments are all it takes, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bits and pieces

The way Sherlock reads - and he reads bloody everything it seems - made John think that it was one of his favourite past times. That he simply loved to read. Turns out he was wrong on that count as well. 

Sherlock doesn’t read because he loves to, he reads because for most of his life there was simply nothing else to do, and any distraction from the sad truth that no one wanted to be around him was better than nothing at all. 

*

“Is there anything you haven’t read?” John leans over the arm of the sofa and tries to discern just what it is that Sherlock’s reading today. Something in... German? With yellowed pages and writing in the margins. 

“No,” Sherlock says tersely and turns the page. “I’ve read everything. Or I will have, once you go away and let me finish this.” He turns another page. 

“Where do all the books go when you’ve read them?” John asks. “The ones on the shelves never change, and by rights we should have stacks of them to the ceiling by now.”

Sherlock shrugs. “I give them away,” he says. “Don’t need them once I’m done. Most of them are useless, anyway.”

John watches him, eyes widening. “I thought you liked reading?”

“Not particularly,” Sherlock admits, his voice flat and bored. “But it is necessary in order to learn about most new subjects. I would rather be reading the latest journals but some of them are difficult to get ahold of and Mycroft refuses to pay the fees for the subscriptions.”

“So why read them?” John hasn’t ever known Sherlock to do anything useless. So, why this?

“What else am I to do?” Sherlock replies, his voice even harsher than before. He slams the book shut and rubs his face, then takes a deep breath and opens the book and finds his page. “Whilst everyone else busies themselves with dates, parties, dinners, whatever inane social _thing_ they must attend to, I at least have books to read.”

And there, right there, John’s breath catches and his eyes squeeze shut because he knows Sherlock is going for detached, or superior to the mindless drones, but he hears the aching loneliness there at never once being invited along. 

So he reaches out and snatches the book from Sherlock’s hands and tosses it over his shoulder (and inwardly winces when he hears it land, and his mum would bloody well kill him if she ever found out). “Yeah, but rotting your brain with that shite cannot be better than coming out with me for a pint and dinner,” he says. 

“It’s Thursday,” Sherlock points out, sounding confused. 

John leans forward so he’s looking into Sherlock’s face, upside down. “Yeah, so?”

“You go out with Lestrade and some of the others from the Yard on Thursdays.”

“Um, I know.” John raises his eyebrows, knowing he likely looks ridiculous. “And you’re coming with me.”

“I am not,” Sherlock refuses with a frown. “I’d be risking losing valuable brain cells just being in the same building as--”

“No, you’re coming,” John interrupts, mostly for the sheer amusement of Sherlock’s face registering being interrupted. “Today, and next week, and every week we don’t have a case. So come on, get your shoes. And don’t you forget your wallet, right? You owe Greg a pint, probably a few, for the way he’s put up with you over the years.”

Sherlock looks downright mutinous for all of maybe three seconds, before his face twists with confusion, then settles into something like bored anxiety. John moves out of the way and lets him sit up, notes the tense set of his shoulders. 

“Just wear what you’ve got on,” John says, hoping to stop Sherlock’s obvious train of thought. “No one wants you to be anything but who you are.”

“Wrong,” Sherlock snaps. “No one wants me to be who I am.”

John walks by, and ruffles Sherlock’s hair as he passes. “You’ve never let them see who you really are,” he says. “Hurry up, we’re leaving at half past.”

*

What bothers John the most is that everyone seems to think Sherlock was born exactly as he is now; and okay, John was guilty of that himself for a few months. The thing is, though, he took the time to find out differently. 

Sherlock hasn’t always been aloof, withdrawn, a veritable endless fountain of knowledge. He was, once, just a little boy. 

*  
“I used to play in the trees near the canal when I was a kid,” John says one winter’s day, staring out the lounge window at the snow drifting down, melting as soon as it hits the street. He smiles, half to himself. 

From where he’s sat in his chair, Sherlock can’t see the smile. But he can deduce it from the wistful tone of John’s voice. He stretches his legs out in front of the fire and turns the page on his kindle, the one John had bought him, complete with subscriptions to his favourite journals, and keeps his silence. He’s rather wanting to hear what memory John is going to produce next.

“One day I was off on my own, and it had just snowed. Came halfway up to my waist. Bloody Yorkshire winters, you know. I was, what-” He pauses and rubs his forehead. “Must have been six or seven. Went climbing the trees myself. You know how it is when you’re a kid, you don’t notice the cold as much. Took me ages to get up in them, at first, but after that I got ruddy high. Anyway, my hands were cold and numb from the snow and I slipped on a branch. Took quite a tumble, landed in the canal and all. Lucky some bloke was near or I would’ve died from the shock of it. Broke my arm in the fall.”

Sherlock sits up then, alarmed, and turns to John with wide eyes. He’s never considered how many times over the years he may have come so close to losing John without ever having known it. It’s, terrifying.

John shrugs, still looking out the window. “Haven’t thought about that in years.” 

Sherlock tries to resettle himself in his chair, but can’t quite shake off the lingering despair, that he might have never had a friend, just because of some little wisp of coincidence.

“I used to climb trees,” he says after a brief silence, surprising himself. He’s never been one to offer up information on his childhood, never cared to remember it. It had been lonely, and it wasn’t all that fond in his memory. 

John looks over, smiles faintly. “You?” he says. “Chasing animals to observe them? Looking for a new moss to catalogue?”

Sherlock focuses his attention on the science journal on his kindle and tries not to scowl. “Contrary to popular opinion, John, sometimes I have done things simply because I like doing them,” he says in as bored a tone of voice as he can, desperate to hide an unexpected feeling of hurt.

There’s a long silence this time, and John turns back to look out at Baker Street. 

“Funny that. Even as kids we liked doing the same things,” he says, his voice full of good humour. 

Sherlock stops in his reading, feels the hurt fade under John’s kind words. “Yes,” he agrees, and can’t help his smile. “I, would pretend the trees were my fleet of pirate ships,” he says, strangely compelled to share this with, possibly, the only person who would never mock him for it. “I made myself a wooden sword, fashioned some of Mummy’s clothes in to a pirate’s outfit. I would leap from the trees at Mycroft if he passed below me.”

John laughs, loudly, but not in a cruel way. “Oh, that’s bloody fantastic!” he says. “Harry came to find me one day and I jumped out of a tree, onto her, and got me arse beat in to the grass for it. Worth it.”

“Every time,” Sherlock agrees, grinning at the memory. So maybe not all of his childhood was so bad. Maybe it was wrong to block all of it out. Maybe, he thinks, there are more moments that John would laugh to hear about.

*

If there’s any of the Met or Scotland Yard who really, actually believes Sherlock Holmes is a sociopath, John wants nothing to do with them. They’ve never seen Sherlock in the throes of the excitement of a case, or on the verge of discovering something really new with a random experiment. 

Sherlock Holmes feels _everything_ , and he feels it deeply. He just, developed, long ago, methods for dealing with. Sidelining it. Marginalising the effects. But some things, well, even he hasn’t been able to get used to those, and John secretly sort of hopes he never does.

*  
 _  
He’s only been gone eight hours. Why do I feel like this? SH_

_Er like what? GL_

_Like I want to scratch my skin off, like I can’t sit still. Like there’s a hole in the flat but I can’t find it. SH_

_Oh, that. Jesus, Sherlock. You miss him, that’s all. When’s he due back? GL_

_Sunday evening. He’ll only be gone a few days. SH_

_Why would I miss him? SH_

_He’s your friend, and your flatmate. You’re used to him being there. It’s natural to miss him. GL_

_John is more than just my flatmate. More than my friend. He is, he’s John. SH_

_Not trying to disprove my point then? GL_

_Why would I? This is what it’s like to miss someone? SH_

_I’ve never missed anyone before. SH_

_Look, I’m just leaving the Yard. I’ll grab a few cans and come over, keep you company so you aren’t lonely, alright? GL_

_Are you mocking me? SH_

_Wouldn’t dare, John would glare at me. GL_

_All right then. Pick up some take away. SH_

_Course. What are mates for, after all? GL_

_Dr Watson, your boyfriend is pining for you. Heading over to help him drown his sorrows. GL_

_Cheers, Greg. JW_

_Sherlock did you tell Lestrade I’m your boyfriend? Am I your boyfriend? JW_

_I dislike the term boyfriend. SH_

_You’re avoiding the question. JW_

_Am I? SH_

_Avoiding the question, or my boyfriend? Yes. JW_

_I prefer ‘partner’. SH_

_So no change there, then. Yes? JW_

_No, John. No change. Except that, yes. Everything will change. SH_

_Only for the best. JW_

_Miss you too btw you great git. JW_

__


End file.
